Our microbes not only produce antibiotics, they also overproduce amino acids

Sergio Sanchez; Romina Rodríguez-Sanoja; Allison Ramos; Arnold L Demain

doi:10.1038/ja.2017.142

Our microbes not only produce antibiotics, they also overproduce amino acids

J Antibiot (Tokyo). 2017 Nov 1. doi: 10.1038/ja.2017.142. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Sergio Sanchez¹, Romina Rodríguez-Sanoja¹, Allison Ramos², Arnold L Demain²

Affiliations

¹ Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, Mexico.
² Charles A Dana Research Institute for Scientists Emeriti (R.I.S.E.), Drew University, Madison, NJ, USA.

PMID: 29089597
DOI: 10.1038/ja.2017.142

Abstract

Fermentative production of amino acids is an important goal of modern biotechnology. Through fermentation, micro-organisms growing on inexpensive carbon and nitrogen sources can produce a wide array of valuable products including amino acids. The amino acid market is $8 billion and mainly impacts the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. In terms of tons of amino acids produced per year by fermentation, L-glutamate is the most important amino acid produced (3.3 million), followed by L-lysine (2.2 million). The bacteria producing these amino acids are among the top fermentation organisms with respect to titers. Corynebacterium glutamicum is the best producer.The Journal of Antibiotics advance online publication, 1 November 2017; doi:10.1038/ja.2017.142.

Publication types

Review